


breathe easy

by theformerone



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Nightmares, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 01:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14631411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Satsuki doesn't wake up screaming. She didn't when they were children, and she certainly doesn't now.





	breathe easy

There is the slightest hesitation. A breath. A perilous hanging between awake and asleep. She dangles there, can feel a hand in her hair, or on her breast, or between her thighs, which holds her, threatening to pull her further in if she does not exert her impeccable self control. 

She snaps herself awake. In one moment her dark eyes are shut, lids quivering with the weight of her dream. Then her eyes are open,staring upwards into the darkness. She doesn't do so much as flinch.

She doesn't reach for Bakuzan Gako at their bedside, nor for Bakuzan Kōryū between the mattress and the box spring. She is still as water, dark eyes burning a hole in the ceiling. 

Nonon watches it unfold. She has slept beside Satsuki for years, through their childhoods, and she knows the signs of a nightmare firsthand. She doesn't do anything as crass as to reach out, to assure Satsuki that she is safe, that her mother cannot harm her any longer, that it has been a year, and that the remaining Life Fibers of the world have all died by now. 

She waits. 

She watches Satsuki look around the room. Watches her eyes, near glowing in the darkness, track the fine shape of the chandelier. She looks at the door, the windows, to ensure there are a reasonable number of exits.

Then she looks at the decorations; the folding screen, the loveseat, the paintings. Her eyes linger on Nonon's guitar on its stand, and the chaise lounge where she likes to play. 

Her eyes scan closer; the bed frame and post. Their nightstands, and bedside tables; two empty teacups, Satsuki's battered annotated copy of 'The Art of War', a discarded black guitar pick. 

Nonon sits up, letting the white bedsheets fall down around her hips so she can bunch them around Satsuki. She's got the fabric ready in her hands when Satsuki finally looks at her. 

"Jakuzure."

Nonon lifts an eyebrow, but there is no one to perform for now. Not here.

"Tell me," Satsuki murmurs, "am I wearing any clothes?" 

Nonon shakes her head. 

"You're naked as a Nudist."

That almost gets a smile out of her; just a barely there quirk of the corners of her mouth upwards.

"And you, Jakuzure?" Satsuki asks. "Are you?"

Nonon lifts the bedsheets bunched up around her hips and peers down at her own legs. 

"Not a scrap," she replies, light as air. She levels Satsuki with a fond look, eyebrow raised. "You rarely let me, when we're alone together."

"Don't be crass, Jakuzure," Satsuki chuckles, but there's humor there, soft and bright, shimmering above her pain. 

Nonon tugs the sheet the rest of the way off of herself, and gently begins to tuck it beneath Satsuki. She would never admit it, at least not out loud, but she found it hard to sleep at night if she wasn't surrounded by blankets.

She -and many of the others that had seen and survived Kiryuuin Ragyo's madness- struggled still with wearing clothes in daily life. At night, they weren't necessary.

But when the nightmares came, Satsuki needed to be covered. As much of her skin as possible. Something needed to override the memory of her mother's hands, of Junketsu's hunger. 

"My name, Satsuki-chan," Nonon says, pulling up the duvet from the bottom of the bed where it had been kicked in their sleep. "Why don't you call me by my name?"

She doesn't look at her, because Nonon knows that Satsuki must get here on her own. Her dreams sometimes trick her, sometimes tease her by throwing something that resembled her life now before throwing in Harime Nui or her mother to toss it all to shit. 

There is a soft shuffling that lets Nonon know that Satsuki is sitting up. She opens her mouth to chide her; Satsuki hasn't been sleeping very well lately, and she has class in the morning but then, there is a hand, not hesitant or trembling, that takes a lock of Nonon's hair.

Satsuki's breath puffs out slow and warm, fanning over the side of Nonon's neck as she breathes in the smell of her hair.

"Nonon."

She smiles, leaning her head towards Satsuki in the darkness.

"That's me." 

"You washed your hair tonight."

Nonon shrugs a shoulder, watching as Satsuki's eyes flicker up from where she's gently wound the lock of hair around her finger. 

"Well, you know," Nonon says, "I forgot to do it yesterday, so I figured I might as well tonight."

Satsuki chuckles at that, and she gives Nonon's hair a barely there tug. Nonon follows the movement, tugging the duvet up over them both as she does. 

"Jasmine, huh?" 

Nonon hums, tugging up the duvet higher so that it covers Satsuki's shoulders. 

"I may have gone a little overboard on the conditioner."

They both know she did it on purpose. That Nonon knew scent was an anchor for Satsuki; Soroi's tea was the strongest of them, was something that Satsuki had tethered herself to before she had met Nonon. But there was no tea on hand, and Nonon couldn't have left the bed without leaving Satsuki to her nightmare alone. 

So she had washed her hair twice in the shower that evening, with the same conditioner she had started using in middle school. The jasmine had been more flowery when they were younger, sweeter. It had sharpened as Nonon had. 

"Look at you," Satsuki says. 

She dips her arm beneath the duvet, tugging the sheet that Nonon used to tuck her in out from beneath her legs. With little difficulty, she tosses it over Nonon until they're both under both blankets, bare leg pressed against bare leg, the whisper of the sheets the only sound in the expansive bedroom. 

Satsuki's fingers release her hair, and she places one slender, calloused hand on the back of Nonon's head, and brings their foreheads together. 

"Still trying to take care of me."

Nonon places her fingers against Satsuki's cheek, just along the angular curve of her jaw. Her short hair is sleep mussed, sticking to her pillow and curling up around her ear. Nonon can just barely see the sweat there, the fine sheen from Satsuki's nightmare brought into the waking world. 

"You don't need anyone to take care of you," Nonon says, drawing her fingers down Satsuki's cheek to her throat, to her shoulder.

Then back, back to the hand on the back of Nonon's head. She takes it, and laces her fingers together with Satsuki's, and brings their combined hands back to rest between the two of them. 

"I'm only here to hold your hand, as long as you'll have me."

She means it. With every vein, with every bone, with every moment she's spent at Satsuki's side, she means it. 

Her eyes soften, a more common expression these days, and she tugs Nonon closer until their chests are pressed together, heads bent in close, familiar, and at home. 

"Breathe with me, Nonon."

They feel each other's breath. The air in the little pocket around them smells like jasmine. When Satsuki's measured breath falls off into sleep, Nonon breathes easy, and follows her.


End file.
